The prize for the most useless weapon of all times goes to the Russians. They invented the “dog mine.” The plan was to train the dogs to associate food with the undersides of tanks, in the hope that they would run hungrily beneath advancing Panzer divisions. Bombs were then strapped to the dogs’ backs, which endangered the dogs to the point where no insurance company would look at them. Unfortunately, the dogs’ associated food solely with Russian tanks. The plan was begun the first day of the Russian involvement in World War II…and abandoned on day two. The dogs with bombs on their backs forced an entire Soviet division to retreat.¹ In this blog we are going to talk about some other useless things. Things the Spirit of God says are of no value.

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Useless Things

• Here are some examples from the Word of God of useless things.

Useless Things: Faith without Works Generally

James 2:14,17 (ESV) — 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?… 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

• Faith without works is dead.
• If your faith is dead, it’s useless both to you and to God.
• What good is it, James asks?

Useless Things: Specifically, The Prayer of Faith without Giving

James 2:15–16 (ESV) — 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

• What good is it to make declarations of faith for someone’s need when you have the answer already in hand?

Useless Things: Trusting in Deceptive Words

Jeremiah 7:8 (ESV) — 8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.

• In Jeremiah 7:8, the deceptive words Israel was trusting in were ‘we are delivered to do abominations’.
• These words are located in verse ten.
• It’s never okay to sin.
• The particular abominations Israel partook of are listed in verse nine: stealing, murdering, committing adultery, lying, and idolatry.
• It is useless for Israel to think in these channels,
• It’s useless to do it also.

Useless Things: Judging People for Sin While Sinning Yourself

Romans 2:1–5 (ESV) — 1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

• Hard and impenitent is not how you want your heart to be.
• Paul here is talking to the self-righteous Jew of his day.
• They were condemning others for the same actions they were personally condoning.
• You have to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

Useless Things: Giving Your Body as a Martyr Without Love as Your Motivation

1 Corinthians 13:3 (NKJV) — 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

• It’s astounding that someone could die for a cause and it is a useless death.
• And, all because love for God is not the motivating force.

Useless Things: Living a Consecrated Life if There’s No Resurrection

1 Corinthians 15:32 (NKJV) — 32 If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

• The potential of the Resurrection is the source of the godly lifestyle.
• Without the Resurrection, this mess on planet earth is the only heaven man will ever know.
• But there is a Resurrection so doesn’t that mean we should get the sin out of our lives?

Useless Things: Substituting Bodily Training for Godly Training

1 Timothy 4:8 (NKJV) — 8 For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.

• Throw in here fad diets, the latest and greatest workout video, and all other forms of physical improvement.
• As a substitute for godliness, it’s totally unprofitable.
• But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care of your body.
• It is the Temple of God.
• While it profits little when putting alongside godliness, it’s a no-brainer to get the little it does give you.

Useless Things: Strange teachings about Food in Place of Godly Teaching about Grace

Hebrews 13:9 (NKJV) — 9 Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

• If it doesn’t profit, it’s useless.
• You have no time for useless.
• We talk about living our lives with purpose.
• The children of Israel had only one known purpose for their lives for forty years, to die off.
• What a sad purpose?
• The only dream that drove them was tiptoeing around in the desert climate.
• The only pursuit of their heart was to die off.
• No mandate for ministry.
• Zero life lived for others.
• No great vision, no castles in the air even.
• What brought them to this pathetic condition?
• Failure to take God at His Word.
• Unbelief was the offender.
• Applied human reasoning’s instead of boldness to take God’s Word literally, was the felon.
• One wonders if they had any regret over not following the example of Caleb in Numbers 14:23-24.
• Unbelief brings one to a fruitless, unproductive and abortive station in life.
• It causes us to become prodigals of purpose.

The Useless Slaughtering of Time

• Many times in the scriptures, we have the phrase ‘and it came to pass’ the phrase is used four hundred and fifty-three times in the Bible.
• The phrase speaks of progress, of movement, of the plan of God coming out into the open in singular events.
• All of this remains hidden in the life of a person who is a dispenser of useless things.
• Nothing comes to pass except the slaughter of time.
• Forty years wandering for not believing the Word of the Lord, what can that be classified as but a severe waste of time?
• But, isn’t that exactly the stratum ‘useless things’ brings us to?
• The book of Proverbs speaks of a person who is a ‘great waster’.

Proverbs 18:9 (KJV) — 9 He also that is slothful in his work Is brother to him that is a great waster.

• The English word ‘waster’ implies a person who does little or nothing of value. ².
• The Hebrew has the meaning of ‘waster’ as a destroyer.
• All of this brings us to the reality of Ephesians 5:15.

Ephesians 5:15 (KJV) – 15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, 16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

• To walk circumspectly means to walk accurately, to be dead-on, spot-on, or on-target.
• What a comfort it is to know that we can live within such liberating confines.
• The unerring demeanor of time is part of God’s creation.
• What an example of precision we have before our very eyes.
• God made the magnificent sun and the reflective moon in order to set the boundaries of time for man.
• The sun and moon are bookends for man’s purpose.
• They are sensational reminders that every day is a day of possibility, a day of advancement, and a day to engage purposeful useful things for His glory.

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